Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To undergo thickening or cause to thicken, as by boiling or evaporation; condense.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To thicken, as a fluid, by evaporation; bring to greater consistence by evaporation.
- Thick; inspissated.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive To thicken, especially by boiling, evaporation, or condensation; condense.
- v. intransitive To become viscous.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To thicken or bring to greater consistence, as fluids by evaporation.
- adj. Thick or thickened; inspissated.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make viscous or dense
- v. become thick or thicker
- v. make thick or thicker
Etymologies
- From Late Latin īnspissāre, īnspissāt-, to thicken : Latin in-, causative pref.; see in-2 + Latin spissus, thick. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“It has all the requisite soft consonants, and is probably as common and more useful for writers than "potamophilous" or "inspissate.”
“A spring of brine rises in the bed of a river, named Lofubu, and this the Bayenga inspissate by boiling, and sell the salt at market.”
The Last Journals of David Livingstone from 1865 to His Death
“The juice inspissate, drunk with wine, helps ague.”
“In these troughs the eggs, broken and stirred with shovels, remain exposed to the sun till the oily part, which swims on the surface, has time to inspissate.”
“The Soldiers which were kept on the Land Frontiers, to clear them of the Indians, taking their Range through a Piece of low Ground, about Forty Miles above the inhabited Parts of Patowmeck River, and resting themselves in the Woods of those low Grounds, observ'd an inspissate Juice, like Molasses, distilling from the Tree.”
“Heroin, morphine and opium are inspissate juices and narcotic poisons in the genus of poppies, called Papaver.”
“Sir C Bunbury Esq and 20 others, I do not mean that these persons wrote to me (they did not except Mr Lofft) but were often sending queries by servants &c which as I never would be seen if I could help it caused me to lose much time and slur a great deal of beautiful white paper, the private friendship and assistance I received from Bob amply paid me for my loss of time &c. and when they prevailed on me to be a Master (in that which is now Mrs Armstrong the Hatters shop) my Sheepishness increased so as to inspissate me, And besides it pleased God to take from me my Excelant wife.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘inspissate’.
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Words that sound dirty but aren't.
When you want to be pedantic AND childish.
titular, masticate, condiment, titmouse, penal, formication, social intercourse, assassination, cacophony, lucubrate, rectify, banal and 131 more...
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Ayatollah's list
Trinkets of lexical goodness.
floccinaucinihili..., quomodocunquize, curmudgeon, illaqueate, ipsissimosity, heterochthonous, hakenkreuz, forisfamiliate, appropinquate, apodyopsis, baryphony, cachinnate and 146 more...
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phrontistery - i
from phrontistery.info
iamb, ianthine, ibidem, iceblink, ichneumous, ichnite, ichnogram, ichnography, ictus, idolum, idoneous, ilke and 510 more...
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RealLifePixel's Bad-Ass Words
Words so awesome they'll kick your eyeballs' asses!
cucurbitaceous, sacerdotal, loudhailer, bildungsroman, sublation, marmoreal, recusant, velleity, hardscrabble, malinger, miasma, brennschluss and 76 more...
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doubtlessly reduntant
pedentive, pendentive, fantod, nonpareil, apposite, anfractuous, amanuensis, sherbet, erumpent, verdigris, styptic, tektitic and 24 more...
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•Specific Wee, Or Sounds Like Specifi...
I'm making this list under duress by bilby. See comments on Specific Excrement and May or May Not Be Specific But Definitely Is Not Excrement.
If you really want to see them, I mean.inspissate, pissabed, premarin, lotium, wee, epistle, piston, haematuria, melanuria, fairy piss, piscina, pissant and 25 more...
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wakcy's Words
apocalypse, interlude, drome, absolution, atrocity, ruse, pristine, mason, reparable, deteriorate, pyramid, hipster and 283 more...
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logos's list
A poor pathetic thing, but mine own.
invidious, lugubriousness, vilify, noisome, synastry, front and center, declension, conjugation, regnal, diphthong, circumlocution, bishopric and 141 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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Awesome Words, Part 1: Less Common
These are words that I have learnt over the years and want to remember
epithalamium, hustings, verger, atheling, moue, pendulous, pendragon, funicular, pericope, fettle, eleemosynary, moot and 160 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Not Quite As Awful As They Sound
masticate, absquatulate, adumbrate, afflatus, fetial, anile, bilabial, cineaste, smew, copse, piebald, testudinate and 156 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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words
diplopic, dolorous, farrago, surety, scuttlebutt, Arabesque, infarct, neurasthenia, lambent, expurge, univocal, simper and 395 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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Gigglesomes
Words that make me giggle.
sackbut, beshrew, hubbub, futz, tchotchke, oolong, newt, dingo, squishy, fjord, squirt, dangler and 107 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for inspissate.

arby It sounds like it should mean "to piss off". BTW Roget (via Bartleby) says a synonym is incrassate. Jun 27, 2008
sera "Letting citizens sue polluters ... would only inspissate the logjam of litigation." (The New York Times, August 5, 1985) Aug 14, 2007
reesetee Wow. And then you *eat* it? Feb 21, 2007
chained_bear Yeah, sometimes I make white sauce and have to wait for it to inspissate.
Eeew. That does sound gross. Feb 21, 2007
reesetee Indeed! It's on my "Not Quite As Awful As They Sound" list! :-) Feb 16, 2007
sionnach it sounds more vulgar than it is, folks! Feb 16, 2007